Page 22 of Dallas

“Can I finish please?” she hissed. “As I was saying, there’s nothing we can do about it. Not right now, at least. I’m willing to call a truce and be as polite as possible so long as you are. I’m far too concerned with Callie to concern myself with your dragon and your traditions.”

Traditions. My blood fairly boiled. I had half a mind to get out of the car and show her a tradition or two by unleashing my dragon. She would see in short order just how fortunate she was to be breathing.

“Could you perhaps not speak so callously about us?” I muttered, still staring at her in the mirror. She met my gaze without blinking.

“I wasn’t trying to be callous.”

“You certainly did a good job of sounding as though you were.”

“This is exactly why we can’t have a truce, because everything I say is unsuitable. You’re incapable of being told you’re wrong, or that you aren’t the most powerful, wonderful creature in the universe. Perhaps a thousand years of living with no one but other dragons has narrowed your vision.”

I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel with a low, resonating growl. “Watch what you say. Fated or not, you’re pushing me to the limits of my endurance.”

“It doesn’t matter that I’m your supposed mate.”

“Not the time to remind me of that, Hecate,” I growled. Louder this time. And when our eyes met again in that mirror, she flinched—clearly and obviously. She saw something she had never seen before, because I’d concealed it from her up to this point.

I wasn’t a bully or a fiend. I had never been the type to flaunt my strength or power, or even to hint at it. She may have been correct in a way; there had never been a reason for me to flaunt anything about myself, for I’d spent the majority of my life among my clan. We all knew who we were, for we were all the same.

Now? Now that she insisted on insulting and deriding me? Now that she showed such little regard for my clan, my blood, my very nature? All bets were off, as humans liked to say.

It took several silent minutes and many deep, measured breaths before I trusted myself to respond. When I did, my voice was more the dragon’s than my own—deep, resonating, a primal snarl. “I’ll ask ye to cease speaking of me and my clan. If ye do, speak of them with respect, for they’ve walked the earth for far longer than ye, and deserve better than your nasty, disparaging tone. Do ye ken?”

She nodded without hesitation, eyes wide over tightly closed lips.

I looked out the window, up the barely visible road already littered with tree limbs and branches. A grim sight. “Good. Now, we can decide how we’re to manage this until help arrives. It shouldn’t be more than a day, I’d hope. Perhaps they’ll wait until the storm ends, then come down. We can only hope they’ll be able to get down—though a group of dragons ought to be able to manage it better than humans could.”

She offered no argument.

Had I frightened her that badly?

“Did—” she whispered before cutting herself off and looking away, out the opposite window.

“Did what?” I prompted, eyes on the road. If only the wind and rain would calm and the clouds break a bit. I’d be able to see further, to know how much farther the road wound before reaching the peak.

“Did you know you sound more Scottish when you’re angry?”

The question was so absurd, I had no choice but to laugh. “I did not.”

“You barely sounded like yourself at all. Do you make it a point to sound more modern, with less of a brogue?”

“I’ve never given it a moment’s thought, truth be told.” Our eyes met in the mirror. “You sound nothing like a Scottish lass, now that you mention it. None of you do.”

“Aye,” she said with a gentle smile. “That’s by design. Mother wished for us to fit in wherever we happened to travel, so we were instructed to use a continental dialect.”

“But you’ve never traveled, have you?”

“No. We haven’t. We didn’t know, when we were young, how things would turn out. How we would have to go into hiding.” She wrapped her arms around herself, looking out the window again. Away from me.

When she began to shiver, I jumped into action. “You’re cold. Still wet. You ought to change into dry clothes, or you might fall ill.” While I wanted nothing to do with her and she wanted less to do with me, my dragon wouldn’t allow me to shirk my duties. She was mine to protect.

“My clothes are in the other car.”

“Callie’s are here, and you two are roughly the same size. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

She looked around. “And just where would you suggest I do this?”

Anything to be impossible. “I’ll look away, for the love of God. Don’t give yourself too much credit.”

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